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[demigod]

Gaming technology moves at a breathtaking pace, even if console generations make it feel static for years at a time - advancements are always happening out of sight.

Artificial intelligence is a buzzword at the moment, but in gaming it generally means something simpler than in the wider world - opponents and allies. AI is shorthand for the bots you play against or alongside, whether those are singleplayer enemies or multiplayer targets.

Players can finally race against Sony's GT Sophy AI, a bot that it's spent years honing with researchers. Unveiled a year ago, it's been facing trials since then and is now out for all of us to match up against.

It's an amazing experience doing so - carefully crafted to play with your expectations. A series of races are on offer, each with multiple difficulty levels, starting you in an overpowered car compared to the AI racers before eventually offering a totally level playing field.

Once you get up to that final level, GT Sophy's sophistication is manifest, in the form of a racer that is unpredictable and opportunistic like no AI we've ever raced.

This isn't just a simple system like Forza's Drivatar options, making the bot more or less aggressive - it's a racer that reacts in real-time and spots opportunities to pull off moves that we didn't even see.

It drives like a player would, if that player were the most reliable and mistake-free driver on the circuit, and it's amazing how revolutionary that can feel.

The question it casts, though, is how it'll impact the scene - is this the future of practice racing, against a perfect machine that can push you to new heights? Or is it the death of competitive Gran Turismo, as people's hopes are snuffed out by a Terminator-like chaser?

The good news is that the AI is in Sony and Polyphony Digital's own hands - unlike in other games, where third-party bots can infiltrate from the outside to crush competitive integrity. Rocket League recently had its own inquest into how a bot called Nexto was being used in ranked play, for one, an almost existential threat to a game's ecosystem.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT and other AI implementations are threatening the worlds of publishing and programming with AI-created scripts that are hard to pick out from authored content, making GT Sophy's release feel all the more timely.

For now, all we can recommend is that any racing fans seek out the Race Together event to try it for themselves. Getting destroyed by an AI is nothing new, but playing one that's indistinguishable from an ace human driver leaves its own distinct glow of admiration.

http://[URL]https://www.pocket-lint.com/gran-turismo-may-have-just-blown-gaming-ai-wide-open/

[/URL]

Can i buy the top car in this pic? Damn sexy

 

[Balducci30]

This would interest me far more if it was in some type of shooter - on a racing track I dunno

 

[Dontkidyourselfjimmy]

Sophy's AI is so realistic she raced really well, really fast in the corners. Couldn't reverse park it back in the garage though.

 

[Aenima]

Not impressed. I was shocked that GT7 still used the "let's give the AI drivers half a lap lead" because we don't know how to match with you.

Lol, thats the normal game AI, not Sophy. You only drive against the Sophy AI in a separate event called Race Together. and its just you vs 4 ai cars. The 1 vs 1 race is just you vs 1 AI car you start the race side by side with the same car. And good luck trying to beat the AI. The best i did was 1 full lap ahead of the AI cuz i ramed the ai car out of the track, but the ai catched me in the second lap and even trying my best to block any space to prevent the ai from overtaking, the ai just managed to take advantage of a corner i did a little too wide and the AI overtook from the inside and i never cathed it.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Not impressed. I was shocked that GT7 still used the "let's give the AI drivers half a lap lead" because we don't know how to match with you.

THIS ^^^ Every race had 3 cars that have a significant lead and your goal is to catch them. It is so predictable and lame. GT7 needs changes to this badly! Next time you race pay attention to the minimal. There is always the same pattern on the map 3 cars>a gap> the rest of the cars. Did any reviewers even notice this. If I was Polyphony I'd be embarrassed by the way the Ai is programmed, considering the pride they seemingly have towards all things racing.

 

[Aenima]

It's interesting, but no, it did not "Blow anything wide open." This kind of stuff has been in the works for a long time and AI applied to gaming isn't new.

And no. Drivatar isn't just a "simple system." It's actually a very similar concept, but funny to see how this writer underestimates it (without explaining) to make the hype in their own article sound more legit.

Incidentally:



This is exactly the worst flaw of the system. Driving against a perfect robot that never makes mistakes may be good for the challenge and self-improvement, but it's not at all immersive and certainly does not give the impression that you're driving against humans.

The true test of the quality of a gaming AI is the ability to simulate human mistakes, not how skilled it is.

Sophy can makes mistakes, I saw the AI spin out of control 2 times during my races, but drives like a pro player. And no its nothing like drivatar. Drivatar uses player data and mimics that data. Sophy learned to drive by itself, the AI we see is the result of Sophy running around the track over and over and over, perfecting its ability to drive very fast, at the same time that tries to race clean, but is still very agressive by trying to overtake you at any oportunity.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

That's exactly the issue. And that's something that has been (weirdly) touted since it was first introduced.

Sophy is a very skilled driving model but a rather poor representation of what an AI should be to make a game more immersive.



Only, a real driver doesn't have that information.

These people keep blabbering about "superhuman performance" and they 100% miss the point that "superhuman" is not what they should be aiming for. It's very impressive tech... used entirely the wrong way. Gaming AI should be at the service of the player's fun and immersion, not aiming to overwhelm the player with perfect performance. The subset of players for which competing against a "superhuman" driving model is actually fun beyond the novelty is very, very small.

I agree 100%. Maybe this will lay the groundwork for what could be ai that makes racing a whole lot more fun. Hopefully the devs have that in mind as the end goal.

 

[Aenima]

THIS ^^^ Every race had 3 cars that have a significant lead and your goal is to catch them. It is so predictable and lame. GT7 needs changes to this badly! Next time you race pay attention to the minimal. There is always the same pattern on the map 3 cars>a gap> the rest of the cars. Did any reviewers even notice this. If I was Polyphony I'd be embarrassed by the way the Ai is programmed, considering the pride they seemingly have towards all things racing.

If you have the game, boot it, enter the Race Together event thats in the top right corner on the main menu map, do the 1vs1 race where you start side by side against Sophy AI, then come back to give us ur toughts on AI.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

If you have the game, boot it, enter the Race Together event thats in the top right corner on the main menu map, do the 1vs1 race where you start side by side against Sophy AI, then come back to give us ur toughts on AI.

I will!

 

[lukilladog]

Scripts and enthusiasm is all you need to make an "ai" car in a game to do the times, some mistake here and there, block you left or right, etc, even in a random manner. Kool-aid Sony marketing.

 

[diffusionx]

I have not tried this Sophy business but I am surprised to see people bring up drivatars, lol drivatars SUCK and have since the very first game. Just empty Greenberg bullshit like everything else he says. THey are usually the worst part of some very good games.

 

[vivftp]

Scripts and enthusiasm is all you need to make an "ai" car in a game to do the times, some mistake here and there, block you left or right, etc, even in a random manner. Kool-aid Sony marketing.

Crafty Sony, able to pull the wool over Nature Journals eyes with smoke and mirrors and tricked them into thinking Sony developed something noteworthy and revolutionary.

Lol, Sophy is the real deal. Accept it.

 

[Gamerguy84]

This was the interesting video that led me to watch a few. It was originally posted by cormack12

Sophy actually learned playing on PSNOW.

 

[Alex Anderson]

Sophy... cute name.

 

[AJUMP23]

Drive-atar 2.0

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Drive-atar 2.0

I'm curious how they differ in their approaches. A little research on GT/Sophie is in order...

No doubt AI is a massive part of gaming for all platforms going forward, not just AI opponents either; graphics, audio, dev pipelines etc. Pretty mental the time we live in with regards to AI.

 

[lukilladog]

Crafty Sony, able to pull the wool over Nature Journals eyes with smoke and mirrors and tricked them into thinking Sony developed something noteworthy and revolutionary.

Lol, Sophy is the real deal. Accept it.

Who cares, the idea that this will evolve racing games is pure kool-aid.

 

[midasmulligan]

Having an AI learn to drive perfectly in a +/- circle is certainly not going to blow the roof off AI in gaming. Additionally, there’s nothing more annoying and immersion breaksg than driving against a perfect AI in racing games. There’s a lot to get hyperbolic about, but that ain’t one of them.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Having an AI learn to drive perfectly in a +/- circle is certainly not going to blow the roof off AI in gaming. Additionally, there’s nothing more annoying and immersion breaksg than driving against a perfect AI in racing games. There’s a lot to get hyperbolic about, but that ain’t one of them.

you're wrong

 

[hyperbertha]

AI has many applications in games however smart opponents aren't one of them, at least not extensively. People will realize at some point smart enemies =/= fun and engaging play.

They can be a nice challenge, but the average player might just find them to be frustrating to play against. Any application of the field on video game enemy AI would have to be severely controlled, gimped or directed at specific features like automated path finding or something else.

My biggest issue with games is how incredibly dumb all ai is. Yea, ai can be used in the wrong way, like perfect aimbots, but as long as you limit their skill and reflexes to human levels and just give them actual logic and intelligence, they become worthy opponents. It's ok if some people get frustrated dealing with them. That's just like people getting frustrated dealing with good players online.

 

[Crayon]

They should dump this straight from the game into self driving civics right now and see what happens.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

But, I LIKE dumb AI. I don't play a lot of games online, because it's too difficult to consistently beat actual players, most of whom probably play that particular game a lot more than me.

I love dealing with dumb AF enemies in Souls and hate being invaded by a person who won't let me just cheese them.

If AF starts acting like actual, thinking players, I'm screwed.

Time to become a bot yourself then, mate.

 

[TBiddy]

It drives like a player would, if that player were the most reliable and mistake-free driver on the circuit, and it's amazing how revolutionary that can feel.

Is that supposed to be a good thing? I don't want to race perfect drivers. I want to race drivers that feel human. Drivers that sometimes slip up, takes a turn a bit wide, brakes too late (or early) etc.

 

[Inviusx]

The 1v1 races are tough because she drives so well, to the point where it's not really fun because the strategy is just pull ahead off the line with traction control and desperately try to defend your line for the remaining laps. If Sophy pulls ahead you are forced to just quit and restart as she's almost impossible to catch up to.

They attempted to counter this with the 1v4 races by putting Sophy in a slower car than yours but then it doesn't feel like a fair fight.

It's an interesting implementation of the idea but they need to tweak it to be more personal and to somewhat match the abilities of the player. Right now it's either too easy because they have to use slower cars or too hard because the AI model doesn't ever make mistakes.

I dont envy the uphill battle of trying to make this feel "fun".

 

[Mung]

Nuts that this was published in Nature. With a front cover too!

I've really enjoyed playing this.. Massive step forward.

 

[pasterpl]

Someone wanted to get some clicks by jumping on the AI hype train.

 

[Dick Jones]

I used VR to race Sophy and it was more stressful than a horror game.

However, she has race craft weaknesses that can be exploited and makes mistakes here and there.

Oh - she is capable of standing starts which is a nice change of pace.

I am by no means an alien - for me she was a challenge but not an overwhelming one.

And it was nice to finally be able to race wheel to wheel with an AI, and not feel they were just there as a moving chicane.

Oh and the AIs race each other too which can be a help or a hindrance.

Of fucking course Lewis Hamilton would say that

 

[crackajack]

Artificial intelligence is a buzzword at the moment

certainly is... only better would be the AI cloud

It drives like a player would, if that player were the most reliable and mistake-free driver on the circuit, and it's amazing how revolutionary that can feel.

not exactly sure how this improves anything for the average dumbass dive bomb idiot like me compared to AI cars just keep following one single line without any sign of noticing my car being there, forcing me to kamikaze my way through.
A good AI should be challenging while accomodating my non pro, sort of clueless fucked up driving style and at best radio me real time tips on what I have to change to actually get better and faster, and not let me guess why that round was faster as the other one while not knowing myself what I have really done differently. Chessmaster eg had the analysis tools since forever and while I doubt I learned much from the "yikes" moments it showed me, I just keep doing sort of random stuff, thinking only one step at the time, the aspiring chess amateur certainly can learn a lot.
AI does not need to get better or perfect, which the stoic ignorant AIs currently already are, it needs to teach me how to be better. Online ghost cars that show how fast people are, are equally useless, if I lose them a few corners in on the same line and just have no idea what I am doing differently.
Never raced much online, but the chaos of Ride4 I recently experienced, where hitting enemies is thankfully off by default, was shameful. In reality I would have killed half the field and would not have done it maliciously, just by being quite regularly bad especially in games that offer not much wiggle room for slacking and force you to get close to the or at least my limits. Most of the field was as bad as me, only maybe two drivers actually knowing what they do and setting the bar for the extra time until dnf in time.
Good drivers can hone their skills against other good drivers and generally know what they are doing, and just need times to beat and opponents on their level but average joes that at least want to not behave like aggressive assholes in every corner until 1st is shown in hte placement need some proper schooling on how to drive nice and fast, with opponents on track. I usually struggle much less with time attack, than with the races where in many games you are always placed dead last and have to fight your way to the front.

With that said, since I don't own GT, I have no real knowledge whatsoever, maybe if I experience this AI it might actually feel different enough and I might get the point and the praise.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Gride Legends has the best AI out of any racer IMO

 

[nemiroff]

Looks like the journalist had his first encounter with Sony's marketing team. He's their bitch now.

 

[Guilty_AI]

My biggest issue with games is how incredibly dumb all ai is. Yea, ai can be used in the wrong way, like perfect aimbots, but as long as you limit their skill and reflexes to human levels and just give them actual logic and intelligence, they become worthy opponents. It's ok if some people get frustrated dealing with them. That's just like people getting frustrated dealing with good players online.

I think you have the wrong idea of how these AIs work. They don't play like human beings, quite the opposite, you'll see them doing plenty of weird stuff that you wouldn't expect from a normal person, with either unexpectedly good results or no results at all.
To get an AI to play like a person, you'd have to design and train it with the specific purpose of imitating human players, similar to how Drivetars work in Forza games.

 

[GymWolf]

Good, now bring this advanced IA in sony games that i give 2 fucks about, please.

It's time for human enemies to not be complete retards even on max difficulty.

 

[reksveks]

Think we are reaching the point of the conversation that I am most interested in.

What is the success criteria of an AI?

Is it to be 'realistic' and/or is to be 'good'?

I also do think that it would be cool as a player to have transparency into the model for NPC's AI within a Rpg, even if its cool for the first 5 NPC's.

 

[Shut0wen]

It's interesting, but no, it did not "Blow anything wide open." This kind of stuff has been in the works for a long time and AI applied to gaming isn't new.

And no. Drivatar isn't just a "simple system." It's actually a very similar concept, but funny to see how this writer underestimates it (without explaining) to make the hype in their own article sound more legit.

Incidentally:



This is exactly the worst flaw of the system. Driving against a perfect robot that never makes mistakes may be good for the challenge and self-improvement, but it's not at all immersive and certainly does not give the impression that you're driving against humans.

The true test of the quality of a gaming AI is the ability to simulate human mistakes, not how skilled it is.

Thing is your right, drivavatar for me is miles better then sophie, sophie just feels like your racing the AI on the most difficult setting, ive seen this shit on dirt games lmao

 

[Unknown?]

certainly is... only better would be the AI cloud

not exactly sure how this improves anything for the average dumbass dive bomb idiot like me compared to AI cars just keep following one single line without any sign of noticing my car being there, forcing me to kamikaze my way through.
A good AI should be challenging while accomodating my non pro, sort of clueless fucked up driving style and at best radio me real time tips on what I have to change to actually get better and faster, and not let me guess why that round was faster as the other one while not knowing myself what I have really done differently. Chessmaster eg had the analysis tools since forever and while I doubt I learned much from the "yikes" moments it showed me, I just keep doing sort of random stuff, thinking only one step at the time, the aspiring chess amateur certainly can learn a lot.
AI does not need to get better or perfect, which the stoic ignorant AIs currently already are, it needs to teach me how to be better. Online ghost cars that show how fast people are, are equally useless, if I lose them a few corners in on the same line and just have no idea what I am doing differently.
Never raced much online, but the chaos of Ride4 I recently experienced, where hitting enemies is thankfully off by default, was shameful. In reality I would have killed half the field and would not have done it maliciously, just by being quite regularly bad especially in games that offer not much wiggle room for slacking and force you to get close to the or at least my limits. Most of the field was as bad as me, only maybe two drivers actually knowing what they do and setting the bar for the extra time until dnf in time.
Good drivers can hone their skills against other good drivers and generally know what they are doing, and just need times to beat and opponents on their level but average joes that at least want to not behave like aggressive assholes in every corner until 1st is shown in hte placement need some proper schooling on how to drive nice and fast, with opponents on track. I usually struggle much less with time attack, than with the races where in many games you are always placed dead last and have to fight your way to the front.

With that said, since I don't own GT, I have no real knowledge whatsoever, maybe if I experience this AI it might actually feel different enough and I might get the point and the praise.

No a good AI shouldn't accommodate your poor driving. It's no wonder the other AI hit you, any other real driver would too.

 

[hyperbertha]

I think you have the wrong idea of how these AIs work. They don't play like human beings, quite the opposite, you'll see them doing plenty of weird stuff that you wouldn't expect from a normal person, with either unexpectedly good results or no results at all.
To get an AI to play like a person, you'd have to design and train it with the specific purpose of imitating human players, similar to how Drivetars work in Forza games.

This is an ml ai that is trained from human driving data. Is drivatar ml?

 

[SkyHighTrees]

Thing is your right, drivavatar for me is miles better then sophie, sophie just feels like your racing the AI on the most difficult setting, ive seen this shit on dirt games lmao

posts like this make me question even coming to these forums. People in this thread have not a clue about what Sophy has been, how it's been developed, what are it's goals, what it's trying to represent and are just auto-saying something something Drivatar

 

[Guilty_AI]

This is an ml ai that is trained from human driving data. Is drivatar ml?

Yeah, neural networks if i'm not mistaken. It uses a specific player's data to train and mimic that player's driving style, then the game puts it against other players.

 

[Freeman76]

I haven't tried it. It's hard to imagine how even a sophisticated ai can show these neat qualities while it's driving like the fucking terminator but word of mouth is positive all around.

Its a Sony product, all you will hear is praise. I couldnt even tell the difference between this and a normal race in GT7 lol

Its a great thing they are doing with this, but a racing game isnt really going to show what it can do. Put this in an FPS and it will push gaming into new territory

 

[Tripolygon]

This is an ml ai that is trained from human driving data. Is drivatar ml?

Yes, but they are not the same type of ML. Drivatar is Bayesian ML model while Sophy is Deep neural network model. To put it simply.

Drivatar is a statistical model that takes driver data and finds statistically significant distributions and correlation. Think of it this way, Turn 10 collects a bunch of driver data like speed, position on track, steering angle, etc. They run it through a Bayesian model which starts to make associations and correlation between those data. They have controls to stop the model from doing certain things like not hitting other players, but it is not really aware of other players in its current form iirc. Major oversimplification on my part.

Sophy is a Deep neural network model meaning it has more than 2 layers. It was never given data on how to drive or any information on steering angles, position on track, speed, etc. It was trained using reinforcement learning, meaning the agent learns to make decisions through trial and error. It literally just figured out how to race by trial and error until it became good at racing. This is why it was featured in Nature. Again oversimplification.

 

[hyperbertha]

Welcome to

Yes, but they are not the same type of ML. Drivatar is Bayesian ML model while Sophy is Deep neural network model. To put it simply.

Drivatar is a statistical model that takes driver data and finds statistically significant distributions and correlation. Think of it this way, Turn 10 collects a bunch of driver data like speed, position on track, steering angle, etc. They run it through a Bayesian model which starts to make associations and correlation between those data. They have controls to stop the model from doing certain things like not hitting other players, but it is not really aware of other players in its current form iirc. Major oversimplification on my part.

Sophy is a Deep neural network model meaning it has more than 2 layers. It was never given data on how to drive or any information on steering angles, position on track, speed, etc. It was trained using reinforcement learning, meaning the agent learns to make decisions through trial and error. It literally just figured out how to drive by trial and error until it became good at driving. This is why it was featured in Nature. Again oversimplification.

Sounds to me like drivatar is more like a pre-recorded virtual driver while sophy is making decisions in real time.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Reminder that Sophy was featured in Nature Journal, which is about as prestigious as it gets for scientific journals. Link to a snippet of the article, a sub is required for the full thing

Outracing champion Gran Turismo drivers with deep reinforcement learning - Nature

Using the game Gran Turismo, an agent was trained with a combination of deep reinforcement learning algorithms and specialized training scenarios, demonstrating success against championship-level human racers.

www.nature.com

Sophy is no mere small upgrade. Polyphony and Sony AI have done some good work and I'm curious to see how Sony AI works with other PlayStation studios on their games. Imagine if they took the already superb AI in TLOU 2 and gave it a Sophy-like bump for a future game. It'd be bloody amazing

Yep, the downplaying must commence, however.

We should be praising this stuff. It was not too long ago where the hottest topics around were how bad AI was (or the lack there of) in games. Now that we have it, goofy bastards want to downplay it.

You can't win with jaded gamers.

Can i buy the top car in this pic? Damn sexy

Yes. There are two versions designed by Italdesign added to the game in the most recent patch.

 

[Tripolygon]

Sounds to me like drivatar is more like a pre-recorded virtual driver while sophy is making decisions in real time.

No, they are both making decisions in real-time. They are just different types of machine learning, and one is a bit more sophisticated than the other.

What people need to remember is that the first Drivatar had to run on the original Xbox from 2001. Turn 10 were working some software magic and it was novel and still is compared to classic racing AI used in gaming today.

 

[Kvally]

I did some Sophy races. All the levels. I beat easy and intermediate easily. Expert has given me a challenge but I’m with the group the entire time. I saved my replays to watch Sophy but I don’t really see much difference compared to the normal AI. The non rolling starts are nice.

 

[Shut0wen]

posts like this make me question even coming to these forums. People in this thread have not a clue about what Sophy has been, how it's been developed, what are it's goals, what it's trying to represent and are just auto-saying something something Drivatar

Literally play any racing game on the highest difficulty and it plays like sophy, i see no difference to it then the AI in the dirt series

 

[Guilty_AI]

posts like this make me question even coming to these forums. People in this thread have not a clue about what Sophy has been, how it's been developed, what are it's goals, what it's trying to represent and are just auto-saying something something Drivatar

I said in a post before but Sophy might be interesting from a academical perspective, but its application in gaming isn't very good.
The average player isn't interested in playing against super-human AIs that commits little to no flaws, and even gimped versions of it might not feel all that different from traditional game AI, or other models of AIs like Drivatars.

For gaming, in the realm of NPC behavior, the interest lies in creating AI that can simulate human behaviour as closely as possible, especially human flaws.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

For best I. A. Only F. E. A. R. And Alien isolation.

 

[Games of Today]

Now Sony, make a new Killzone with this A.I. advancement please.

 

[Games of Today]

For best I. A. Only F. E. A. R. And Alien isolation.

And Far Cry 2

 

[DeepEnigma]

For best I. A. Only F. E. A. R. And Alien isolation.

After messing with Sophy, that shit is no joke. Nothing at all like racing games standard "AI"

It's going to be interesting how they build upon it.

Excerpts with one of the scientists behind it was quite fascinating.